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About 8 months ago I favourited this photo in Flickr. And since my Flickr account is slowly getting a little more popular I looked at my stats and the photos I’d favourited yesterday.

Update: I never thought it would happen due to her husband/manager and her contract with Pancrase, but Rin Nakai has signed with the UFC and will fight Meisha Tate on the next UFC card in Japan. Rin seems too short for the women’s 135lb division in the UFC and would benefit from training with more professional MMA fighters with high level UFC experience but I wish her luck. I still want a Rin Nakai walkout shirt, maybe I can order one off of UFC.com now.

Remember this photo is taken after a professional mixed martial arts fight, which Rin of course won. She’s still undefeated and looking for a bigger fight, possibly on American soil where the money is greener.

This is a big week of fights. GSP of course has to defend his UFC welterweight title against Kos. But also apparently this Friday night at 11:00 PM PST is the K1 Grand Prix. K1 has lost some of it’s luster especially outside of Asia and a few European countries as most martial artists who want to prove their prowess eventually go into MMA as that is where the biggest money is and the most promotion. Even if you don’t want to fight, just joining training camps or academies pays well for jujitsu, wrestling, and striking experts. GSP brought in a couple Brazilians to help in his final preparations for his fight this weekend.

I lost a little respect for K1 when I learned they changed the rules to make it more difficult for this one Muay Thai fighter as he was dominating the lighter weights which is the only real hope the Japanese have of winning in K1 now. The heavier weights are dominated by Europeans mostly. They limited the amount of knees I think you were allowed to throw in the Thai Plum, something like that. Or was it limited elbow strikes in some way, basically moves that weren’t part of Karate were demphasised further or made illegal to stop the Juggernaut that was Buakaw. Some Japanese hero was able to finally defeat him by decision then he retired without fighting him again, very dubious.

Yep they made elbows illegal then the Thai Plum…

Attacking an opponent while holding a neck of an opponent with both hands is considered a foul technique. A fighter is allowed to attack momentarily when grabbing his opponent with one hand. The referee may call a break during a match if the one handed grab does not lead to an effective attack, and may give a caution or a warning if these ineffective single grabbing continues and or if such actions cause deadlock.

I dug up a highlight real for Buakaw whose name I also needed reminding of, I think his Japanese rival was Masato. When you get famous at fighting you only need one name. I have a lot of cool and a lot of dodgy video clips favourited on YouTube, maybe I’ll have to dig a few more out and add to my blog at some point, though some definitely appeared in the past. Alas DIY highlight videos come and go due to copyright infringement.

Since it doesn’t have the UFC hype machine behind it, here is the official trailer for the 2010 World Grand Prix Final of K1. It is open weight hence why a giant Dutchman has won it most years, this year most of the finalists are rather large Dutchmen. ;-)

Update July 2012

Rin’s fighting career has not been going that well of late from what I’ve read. She also seems to have gone down a path I’d hoped she’d avoid by doing many ‘cheesecake’ style spreads online and for magazines in Japan. Hopefully she doesn’t get lured into Japan’s adult entertainment industry like so many young Japanese women before her…

Update September 7th 2012

Rin Nakai had a bout recently. She is trying to rebuild her confidence perhaps, but like a lot of Japanese fighters is a bit small and short for competition outside of Japan. 135lbs seems to be the weight at which women are able to compete and make money fighting in a cage. Witness the rise of Rhonda Rousey. Rin is a bit short to fight at 135 pounds let alone the larger weight classes, so I’d hold off on hyping the Rhonda VS Rin super fight. In the mean time a bunch of interviews and other clips of Rin have been posted to YouTube. She still makes some questionable fashion choices and I still worry about her falling prey to the Japanese AV industry.

She appears to have switched from purple to orange for her fighting garb. I still like the original purple Rin cartoon shirts, difficult to score one. I think I even asked a friend traveling to Japan to look for one for me…